Writing Verse for “Brush & Shutter”

Greeting you at the entrance to Brush & Shutter: Early Photography in China is a duilian, two lines of Chinese poetry that situate the exhibition. The author of that duilian here describes the process of its creation, which was spurred by a conversation with former research assistant Yilin (Linlin) Wang. The Mandarin version of the post is followed by an English translation by Julia Grimes of the Getty Research Institute.

Yilin (Linlin) Wang recommended that I write this duilian (poetic couplet). She had worked on the Brush & Shutter exhibition for a long time, and thoroughly understood its content and organization; after she left [the United States], she remained close to Jeff [Cody] and Fran [Terpak], the curators of the exhibition. When Fran and the exhibition designers planned to hang a duilian at the entrance of the gallery, Linlin recommended me to them.

While I was composing a draft, having spent some time brainstorming with Linlin, I chose every word with
care. The first two duilian I wrote were:

Like drunkenness, like infatuation, a thousand accumulated sorrows on [only] a few sheets of paper;
At once truth, at once illusion, a hundred years of changes [pass and are captured] in an instant.

Although the name of the exhibition is “Brush and Shutter,” there are few actual painted works featured. “Brush” is here used in an aesthetic sense, as several landscape photographs from that time imitate the imagery of Chinese ink landscape painting, while in other works brushes have been used to color photographs. Due to this, Linlin somewhat disapproved of the first duilian written above, because the way it juxtaposed and contrasted paintings and photographs did not match the exhibition’s content. She was also dissatisfied with the second initial couplet line, since this sentence seemed to show a creative condition particular only to artists, and the exhibition did not bear much relation to that.

I again drafted two or three lines and emailed them to Linlin. Several days later, she called me (she is in Beijing), and we spent four or five hours in discussion over the phone. We finally decided on the version that is now seen at the exhibition’s entrance:

如梦如诗，千里景色几张纸；
亦真亦幻，百年沧桑一瞬间。

Like dreams, like poems, a thousand miles of scenery on [only] a few sheets of paper;
At once truth, at once illusion, a hundred years of changes [pass and are captured] in an instant.

The Chinese people have a long history. The significance that they attach to history, their close examination of it, and their way of recalling it with deep feeling is an important tradition in Chinese culture. During the past 100 years, they have experienced never-before-encountered historical changes, the dramatic extent of which is rare in this world. Returning to the photographs in the exhibition, the emotions associated with this history arose of their own accord, lingering [in my heart]. The second line seemingly wrote itself.

Later I wrote several others, but I still couldn’t give it up. “When composing a line of poetry about the vicissitudes of life, the line somehow polishes itself” [due to the poet’s own suffering in life, the words flow forth, already in their final form]; ancient people early on came to this conclusion.

The second line is thus the temporal dimension’s sigh of regret, while the first line contains thoughts about the concept of space. In [the 19th century], photographs were still a rare means to record contemporary people, customs and scenery. Featured in the exhibition are a few photographs that incorporate Chinese landscape painting’s methods of adopting a perspective. Coming from southern and northern China, these scenes of every description, when placed together, expand beyond the span of the gallery space.

In the duilian, the first line’s “a thousand miles of scenery” is big, “a few sheets of paper” is small; the second line’s “a hundred years of changes” is big, “an instant” is small. Although the content of the two lines is equal, the mood progresses: when I make the contrast between large and small, when I add the emotions, [suddenly] summoned, that people experience on viewing this history, there my open and clear perspective on the basis of history at large is present. On this point Linlin and I reached a consensus, and we finally completed the draft.

Translator’s note: 风情, in the first duilian above, is difficult to translate, incorporating meanings such as “wind directions,” “winsome expressions of love,” and “local customs.”

About The Author

唐慶年一九五六年生於北京。一九八四年畢業於中央工藝美術學院。曾為中國的美術雜誌《美術》編輯部副主任，美術評論家。八十年代中期中國新潮美術剛剛露出端倪，他就是最早的推動者。一九八九年北京行的中國現代藝術展，他是組織委員會成員和展覽組織者之一。一九九一年移居美國後，繼續從事他的藝術實踐。現在在南加州最大的亞裔廣告公司之一擔任藝術顧問。
Qingnian Tang was born in 1956 in Beijing, where he graduated from the Central Academy of Art and Design before serving as art critic and vice director of the editorial department for the art magazine Meishu (Art Monthly). Among the first artists to promote China’s seminal “New Wave” art movement in the mid-1980s, Tang was a primary exhibition coordinator for the 1989 China/Avant-garde exhibition held in Beijing. In 1991 he moved to the United States, where he has continued his art practice. He currently works as an artistic advisor at one of the largest Asian American advertising agencies in Southern California.

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